I frequently have discussions about cheating with my ARK:SE buddies, actually having friendly debates about what represents cheating. 
What do you think?
Some think that cheating is taking any shortcut by means of hacks or frequently involves using the game console to give yourself something, abilities or items, an advantage the developers never wanted you to have. I agree with this definition however I don't agree that it's always the noble option. Sometimes, it's the time wasting, soul sucking grind option.
My view is that if this was real life, I'd be willing to spend several hundred hours gathering materials to build a house or a dino pen, but in a game, once I've spent several hours gathering materials and have repeatedly proven, I can do that, basically I've got better things to do to entertain me. So I have been known to poof up the materials I need. I'm currently a functional admin on a private ARK server, and when working with others who enjoy the grind, I do go through the motions of gathering, while sometimes augmenting my spoils via console command.
Of interest for this discussion is when mods are introduced into the game. Some mods increase the pretty factor, decorations, convienence and such, but others represent hard core officially condoned cheating! Lol. Like in Fallout 4, why can't I salvage all those falling down houses for materials? Via the Spring Cleaning mod, I can!
And in ARK, with the SteamPunk Mod, instead of the back breaking gathering material to keep your generator supplied with gas, build a steam powered generator that runs on water! Or a drill that when placed on the ground, magically produces a mountain if rock without digging a huge crator... amazing, but no this is not cheating.
SteamPunk (rock) Drill runs on spark powder
What do you think?Some think that cheating is taking any shortcut by means of hacks or frequently involves using the game console to give yourself something, abilities or items, an advantage the developers never wanted you to have. I agree with this definition however I don't agree that it's always the noble option. Sometimes, it's the time wasting, soul sucking grind option.
My view is that if this was real life, I'd be willing to spend several hundred hours gathering materials to build a house or a dino pen, but in a game, once I've spent several hours gathering materials and have repeatedly proven, I can do that, basically I've got better things to do to entertain me. So I have been known to poof up the materials I need. I'm currently a functional admin on a private ARK server, and when working with others who enjoy the grind, I do go through the motions of gathering, while sometimes augmenting my spoils via console command.
Of interest for this discussion is when mods are introduced into the game. Some mods increase the pretty factor, decorations, convienence and such, but others represent hard core officially condoned cheating! Lol.
Like in Fallout 4, why can't I salvage all those falling down houses for materials? Via the Spring Cleaning mod, I can!And in ARK, with the SteamPunk Mod, instead of the back breaking gathering material to keep your generator supplied with gas, build a steam powered generator that runs on water! Or a drill that when placed on the ground, magically produces a mountain if rock without digging a huge crator... amazing, but no this is not cheating.
SteamPunk (rock) Drill runs on spark powder